A wide variety of dispenser cabinets for dispensing paper toweling from a roll are in commercial use. Conventionally, the paper towel rolls include bearing surfaces at opposed ends thereof. These bearing surfaces may, for example, simply comprise the open ends of a core incorporated in the roll. Other paper towel roll products exist wherein grooves or indents are formed in the paper toweling itself to form the bearing surfaces.
Regardless of the nature of the bearing surfaces incorporated in the paper towel roll product, it is well known to support the wound roll in a dispenser cabinet by means of support members attached to the cabinet housing and which include support elements engageable with the bearing surfaces at opposed ends of the wound roll to support the wound roll. During dispensing of toweling from the cabinet, the wound roll rotates on the support elements and gradually diminishes in size.
Problems are encountered when dispenser cabinets are employed to dispense sheet material from a relatively large, heavy roll of material such as paper towel rolls having diameters in the order of eight inches or so. Such rolls are now in widespread usage. The larger the roll, in general, the heavier and less stable it is. The combination of increased weight and instability during rotation can cause inadvertent dislodgment of the bearing surfaces from the support elements.
The use of these large diameter rolls in dispensing cabinets also creates another problem. As toweling is withdrawn during the dispensing operation, the inertia of a large rotating roll can cause it to "free-wheel" within the cabinet. In other words, more toweling may be unwound from the roll than is actually dispensed from the cabinet. This surplus of toweling can interfere with the proper operation of the dispenser cabinet.
To prevent such excessive rotation it is known to frictionally engage the outer surface of a roll product with a spring-like band partially extending about the periphery of the roll product and attached to the housing. This arrangement has been found to be less than satisfactory since the frictional forces exerted thereby vary considerably as toweling is dispensed from the roll. That is, the frictional forces exerted by the band diminish in magnitude in a relatively uncontrolled manner as the towel roll is depleted. Also, variation in the diameter of roll products inserted into cabinets of this prior art type can cause great differences in the frictional forces initially exerted by the band.